[Quote No.43548] Need Area: Fun > TV/movies "Great stories never really end; they take up residence inside us and live on in our thoughts, conversations, fantasies, and dreams. They are also a powerful influence over our beliefs, values, opinions, and perceptions!" - Dara MarksShe is a script consultant who has consistently been rated one of the best in the film industry by 'Creative Screenwriting Magazine'. Quote from her book, 'Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc'. The screenwriter and playwright, Lisa Loomer, says 'Daraís work is more than a unique approach to story. It is an understanding of the transformational process that is life.' Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.51640] Need Area: Fun > TV/movies "[Poem: 'Survivor' - about how we can use almost anything, even other people's miseries, to distract ourselves from our own problems in order to be happier.]

Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
Violence, terrorism, war,
The end of the world.

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

[Quote No.52578] Need Area: Fun > TV/movies "[When trying to understand why popular culture and quite a bit of sales and marketing is shocking or extreme it is helpful to understand that it needs to grab our attention and the focusing section of our brains - the Reticular Activating System - has evolved to be on the look out for anything unusually good or bad in order to improve our chances of survival. Our memories work in the same way. Culture and sales materials just reflect this.] The point of the memory techniques described in [the ancient text book] 'Rhetorica ad Herennium' is to take the kinds of memories our brains aren't that good at holding onto and transform them into the kinds of memories our brains were built for. It advises creating memorable images [with your imagination]... the funnier, lewder and more bizarre, the better. [Because...] 'When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary and banal, we generally fail to remember them. ...But if we see or hear [or vividly imagine] something exceptionally base, dishonorable, extraordinary, great, unbelievable or laughable, that we are likely to remember it for a long time!' " - Joshua FoerAuthor's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.52878] Need Area: Fun > TV/movies "[Poem: about the great joy of many simple, inexpensive, easy, natural things. Contrary to most advertising - on television or marketed on other media, expensive things are not necessary to be happy, but they are sold as exclusive luxury making the irrational and patently false claims that only those things will bring you happiness and without those things somehow you are less 'important or valuable' as a person.]

'I Have Found Such Joy'

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through a door.

I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.

Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things -- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.